1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture recorder/reproducer and a method for recording stream data composed of compressed video/voice information and reproducing images and voice from recorded stream data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital broadcasting is started and has been able to be received by a personal computer. The capacity of a hard disk mounted in a personal computer has also increased. Then, it is conceivable that the opportunity to record and reproduce stream data used for digital broadcasting utilizing a personal computer will be increased in future.
In case stream data used for digital broadcasting is recorded, it is possible to record stream data in a storage device such as a hard disk since a user issues a recording initiation command.
When stream data is reproduced, data after a sequence header is normally reproduced by referring to the sequence header having image format information such as the size of an image and an image frame rate.
Therefore, in a conventional type recording/reproducing method, it is also possible to record stream data before the sequence header in a storage device since the recording of stream data is started at arbitrary time at which a user tries to record it, however, stream data without the sequence header is not normally reproduced and becomes noise.
Further, as stream data without a sequence header is also read as recorded data in reproducing, time loss occurs until data after a sequence header is output as normal video/voice data.
As for recording/reproducing stream data, heretofore, various techniques have been developed (refer to Japanese published unexamined patent applications No. Hei 8-130700, No. Hei 9-17128 and No. Hei 11-69308 for example), however, there is no patent application in which improvement is tried from such a viewpoint.
As described above, in the conventional type recording/reproducing method, stream data in a period since a recording initiation command is issued until the next sequence header emerges is not only normally reproduced even if the stream data is recorded but there is a problem that time loss occurs until normal reproduction is enabled.